name	Bambi
director	David Hand
writer	Larry MoreyPerce PearceGustaf TenggrenFelix Salten
starring	Bobby StewartDonnie DunaganHardie AlbrightJohn SutherlandPaula WinslowePeter BehnTim DavisSam EdwardsWill WrightCammie KingAnn GillisFred ShieldsStan AlexanderSterling Holloway
music	Frank Churchill, Edward H. Plumb
producer	Walt Disney
studio	Walt Disney Productions
distributor	RKO Radio Pictures
released
runtime	70 minutes
country
language	English
gross	$267,447,150 }}

''Bambi'' is a 1942 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the book ''Bambi, A Life in the Woods'' by Austrian author Felix Salten. The film was released by RKO Radio Pictures on August 13, 1942, and it is the fifth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series.

The main characters are Bambi, a white-tailed deer, his parents (the Great Prince of the forest and his unnamed mother), his friends Thumper (a pink-nosed rabbit), and Flower (a skunk), and his childhood friend and future mate, Faline. For the movie, Disney took the liberty of changing Bambi's species into a white-tailed deer from his original species of roe deer, since roe deer do not inhabit the United States, and the white-tailed deer is more familiar to Americans. The film received three Academy Award nominations: Best Sound (Sam Slyfield), Best Song (for "Love Is a Song" sung by Donald Novis) and Original Music Score.

In June 2008, the American Film Institute presented a list of its "10 Top 10"—the best ten films in each of ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. ''Bambi'' placed third in animation.

Plot

In a forest thicket, a doe gives birth to a fawn whom she names Bambi. After he learns to walk, Bambi befriends Thumper, a young rabbit; then, while learning to talk, Bambi meets a young skunk whom he calls "Flower" (the skunk says that he does not mind this name at all, and the infant Bambi says, "Flower, pretty Flower").

After Bambi has completely learned how to talk, his mother takes him to the meadow, a place that is both wonderful and frightening. Bambi's mother warns him that deer are unprotected in the meadow as there are no trees or bushes to hide them, so they must take great care for their own safety. In the meadow, Bambi meets the female fawn Faline, her mother, Aunt Ena, and his own father, the Great Prince of the Forest. Crows suddenly begin to caw, startling all the animals to flee the meadow; Bambi struggles against the rushing animals, trying to find his mother, but his father arrives just in time to press Bambi and his mother out of the meadow before a hunter can shoot them. When Bambi asks why they all ran, his mother explains that "Man was in the forest".

During a harsh winter, Thumper teaches Bambi how to slide on ice. One day at the end of winter, Bambi and his mother go to the meadow and discover a patch of new grass, heralding the arrival of spring. As they eat, his mother senses a hunter and orders Bambi to flee. As they run, gun shots ring out. When Bambi arrives at their thicket, he discovers his mother is no longer with him. He wanders the forest calling for her, but she does not answer. His father appears in front of him and tells Bambi, "Your mother can't be with you anymore" (implying that she has been killed by hunters), then leads him away.

In the spring, an adult Bambi is reunited with Thumper and Flower as the animals around them begin pairing up with mates. Though they resolve not to be "twitterpated" like the other animals in love, Thumper and Flower each leave with newly found mates. Bambi is disgusted, until he runs into Faline and they become a couple. As they happily dance and flirt through the woods, another buck, Ronno, appears who tries to force Faline to go with him. Though he initially struggles, Bambi's rage gives him the strength to defeat Ronno and push him off a cliff and into a river below.

That night, Bambi and Faline continue to go through the woods dancing and flirting. Then the next morning, Bambi is awoken by the smell of smoke and the blowing of a horn. His father explains that Man has returned to the forest in greater numbers, and they must flee. When crows caw, Faline is awakened and searches for Bambi. Bambi goes back to search for Faline, but she is gone. While searching for Bambi, Faline is being chased by hunting dogs, and takes refuge on a cliff ledge. Bambi finds her in time and fights off the dogs, allowing Faline to escape. With Faline safe, Bambi kills the hunting dogs after kicking several rocks onto them, then runs but then Bambi is shot as he leaps over a ravine. The Great Prince finds him there and urges him back to his feet, when at the same time, a forest fire begins. Together, they escape the forest fire and go to a small island in a lake where the other animals, including Faline, have taken refuge and Bambi becomes the new Prince.

At the end of the film, Faline gives birth to twin fawns, a boy and a girl, Bambi stands watch on the large hill, and the Great Prince silently turns and walks away, while Prince Bambi looks on proudly watching on his newborn children, just as his father did to him at his own birth.

Cast

Bobby Stewart as Baby Bambi

Donnie Dunagan as Young Bambi

Hardie Albright as Adolescent Bambi

John Sutherland as Adult Bambi

Paula Winslowe as Bambi's Mother and the Pheasant

Peter Behn as Young Thumper

Tim Davis as Adolescent Thumper and Adolescent Flower

Sam Edwards as Adult Thumper

Stan Alexander as Young Flower

Sterling Holloway as Adult Flower

Will Wright as Friend Owl

Cammie King as Young Faline

Ann Gillis as Adult Faline

Fred Shields as Great Prince of the Forest

Margaret Lee as Mrs. Rabbit

Mary Lansing as Aunt Ena and Mrs. Possum

Production

Sidney Franklin, a producer and director at MGM films, purchased the film rights to Felix Salten's novel ''Bambi, A Life in the Woods'' in 1933, intending to adapt it into a live action film. Deciding it would be too difficult to make such a film, he sold the film rights to Walt Disney in April 1937. Disney began working on crafting an animated adaptation immediately, intending it to be the company's second feature length animated film and their first to be based on a specific, recent work. However, the original novel, written for an adult audience, was considered too "grim" and "somber" for a regular light hearted Disney film. The artists also discovered that it would challenging to animate deer realistically, and at the same time, keep the characters slightly exaggerated and "cartoony". Due to this Disney put production on hold while it worked on several other works. In 1938, Disney assigned Perce Pearce and Carl Fallberg to work on the film's storyboards, but attention was soon drawn away as the studio began working on ''Fantasia'' (1940). Finally, on August 17, 1939, production on ''Bambi'' began in earnest, though progressed slowly due to changes in the studio personnel, location, and methodology of handling animation at the time. The writing was completed in July 1940, by which time the film's budget had swelled to $858,000.

Walt Disney attempted to achieve realistic detail in this animated film. He had Rico LeBrun, a painter of animals, come and lecture to the animators on the structure and movement of animals. Animators also visited the Los Angeles Zoo. A pair of fawns (named Bambi and Faline) were shipped from the area of present day Baxter State Park in Maine to the studio so that the artists could see first-hand the movement of these animals. The source of these fawns, from the Eastern United States, was the impetus for the transformation of Felix Salten's roe deer to white-tailed deer. A small zoo was also established at the studio so animators could study other animals, like rabbits, ducks, owls, and skunks at close range.

The background of the film was inspired by the Eastern woodlands; one of the earliest and best known artists for the Disney studio, Maurice "Jake" Day spent several weeks in the Vermont and Maine forests, sketching and photographing deer, fawns, and the surrounding wilderness areas. The usage of the multi-plane camera also added to the realism of the backgrounds.

Although there were no humans in the film, live action footage of humans were used for one scene: actress Jane Randolph and Ice Capades star Donna Atwood acted as live-action references for the scene where Bambi and Thumper are on the icy pond.

The realism that Disney was pushing caused delays in production; animators were unaccustomed to drawing natural animals, and expert animators could only manage around eight drawings a day. This amounted to only half a foot of film a day, unlike the normal rate of production of ten feet. This equaled less than a second of film versus over thirteen seconds. Disney was later forced to slash 12 minutes from the film before final animation, to save costs on production due to losses suffered in Europe as World War II loomed.

Although the release of ''Bambi'' was an initial financial loss for the studio the animators learned a lot during its production that they'd utilize in future projects. Animators now had a broader spectrum of animation styles, from the wider stylization of Mickey Mouse to the naturalistic look of characters like the stag version of Bambi. They also learned more techniques with the multiplane camera, expanding their knowledge of its usage. Additionally the paint laboratory had developed hundreds of new colors for the production that were used in future films.

Release

''Bambi'' was released in theaters in 1942, during World War II, and was Disney's 5th full-length animated film. ''Bambi'' was re-released to theatres in 1947, 1957, 1966, 1975, 1982, and 1988. It was then made available on home video in 1989. Even in home video, ''Bambi'' has seen multiple releases, including two VHS releases, in 1989 (Classics Version) and 1997 (Masterpiece Collection Version), and most recently a digitally-remastered and restored Platinum Edition DVD. The Platinum Edition DVD went on moratorium on January 31, 2007.

Bambi was released in Diamond Edition on March 1st, 2011, consisting of a Blu-ray and DVD combo pack. According to Cinema Blend, this release is set to include multiple bonus features that were not previously included in Bambi home releases: a documentary entitled ''Inside Walt’s Story Meetings – Enhanced Edition'', two deleted scenes, a deleted song, an image gallery, and a game entitled ''Disney’s Big Book of Knowledge: Bambi Edition''. The release will also mark the first use of "Disney Second Screen", a feature which is accessed via a computer or iPad app download that syncs with the Blu-ray disc, allowing the viewer to follow along by interacting with animated flip-books, galleries and trivia while watching the movie. A UK version of Diamond Edition was released on February 7, 2011.

Reception

''Bambi'' lost money at the box office for its first release, but recouped its considerable cost during the 1947 re-release. Although the film received good reviews, the timing of the release, during World War II, hurt the film's box office numbers. The film did not do so well at the box office in the U.S., and the studio no longer had access to many European markets that provided a large portion of its profits. Roy Disney sent a telegram to his brother Walt after the New York opening of the film that read: "Fell short of our holdover figure by $4,000. Just came from Music Hall. Unable to make any deal to stay third week...Night business is our problem."

What also hurt box office numbers is the realistic animation of the animals, and the story of their fight against the evil humans in the story. Hunters spoke out against the movie, saying it was "an insult to American sportsmen". The criticism, however, was short-lived, and the financial shortfall of its first release was made up multiple times in the subsequent re-releases.

Today, the film is viewed as a classic. The film holds a 91% "Fresh" rating from fans and critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics Mick Martin and Marsha Porter call the film "...the crowning achievement of Walt Disney's animation studio". In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten top Ten" — the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres — after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. ''Bambi'' was acknowledged as the third best film in the animation genre.It is also listed in the Top 25 Horror Movies of all Time by Time Magazine. Bambi, Time states, "has a primal shock that still haunts oldsters who saw it 40, 50, 65 years ago."

In 2011, however, Craig Berman of MSNBC ranked ''Bambi'' as the worst kid film of all time, "Yeah, it’s a classic, and you saw it when you were a kid. But his mom dies! He gets shot! The forest catches on fire! And then your kid starts crying and looks out the car window to see a deer that was hit by a car lying dead by the side of the road. Good luck with the rest of that car trip, buddy."

Legacy

The off-screen villain "man" has been placed #20 on AFI's List of Heroes and Villains.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney has credited the shooting death of Bambi's mother for his initial interest in animal rights, an example of what has been called the Bambi effect.

Soon after the film's release, Walt Disney allowed his characters to appear in fire prevention public service campaigns. However, Bambi was only loaned to the government for a year, so a new symbol was needed, leading to the creation of Smokey Bear. Bambi and his mother also make a cameo appearance in the satirical 1955 Donald Duck short ''No Hunting'': drinking from a forest stream, the deer are startled by a sudden trickle of beer cans and other debris, and Bambi's mother tells him, "Man is in the forest. Let's dig out."

In 2006, the Ad Council, in partnership with the United States Forest Service, started a series of Public Service Announcement ads that feature footage from ''Bambi'' and ''Bambi II'' for wildfire prevention. During the ads, as the ''Bambi'' footage is shown, the screen will momentarily fade into black with the text "Don't let our forests...become once upon a time", and usually (but not always) ending the ads with Bambi's line "Mother, what we gonna do today?" followed by Smokey Bear saying "Only you can prevent wildfires" as the Smokey logo is shown on the screen. The ads air on various television networks, and the Ad Council has also put them on Youtube.

American Film Institute

AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies - Nominated

AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains:

* Man - #20 Villain

AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores - Nominated

AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - Nominated

AFI's 10 Top 10 - #3 Animated film

Sequel

''Bambi II'' was released as a midquel sequel to ''Bambi''. Set in middle of ''Bambi'', it shows the Great Prince of the Forest struggling to raise the motherless Bambi, and Bambi's doubts about his father's love. The film was released direct-to-video on February 7, 2006. While the film was a direct-to-video release in the United States and other countries, including Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan, it was a theatrical release in some countries, including Australia, Austria, Brazil, Dominican Republic, France, Mexico, the United Kingdom and some other European countries.

Copyrights

The copyrights for ''Bambi, A Life in the Woods'' were inherited by Anna Wyler, Salten's daughter, who renewed them in 1954. After her death, Wyler's husband sold the rights to Twin Books, which subsequently filed a law suit against Disney, claiming Disney owed it money for the continued licensing for the use of the book. Disney countered by claiming that Salten had published the story in 1923 without a copyright notice, and was thus immediately entered into the public domain. Disney also argued that if the claimed 1923 publication date was accurate, then the copyright renewal filed in 1954 had been registered after the deadline and was thus invalid. The courts initially upheld Disney's view; however, in 1996, the Ninth Circuit Court reversed the decision on appeal.

References

External links

Official Disney ''Bambi'' DVD website

Category:Bambi Category:1942 films Category:American films Category:American children's fantasy films Category:American coming-of-age films Category:Disney animated features canon Category:English-language films Category:Films about animals Category:Films based on children's books Category:Films featuring anthropomorphic characters Category:Films shot in Technicolor

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name	Andreas Deja
birth date	1 April 1957
birth place	Gdańsk, Poland
occupation	Animator
years active	1980–present
spouse	}}

Andreas Deja (born 1 April 1957), is an animator for Walt Disney Animation Studios most noted for creating animated Disney villains such as Gaston from ''Beauty and the Beast'', Jafar from ''Aladdin'' and Scar from ''The Lion King''. Deja is a recipient of the Winsor McCay Award.

Early life

Andreas Deja was born 1957 in Gdańsk, Poland. Deja moved with his family to Dinslaken, Germany in 1958. Deja credits his first seeing Disney's Jungle Book when he was 11-years-old with inspiring him to become an animator. After graduating from Theodor-Heuss Gymnasium (secondary school), he studied graphic design at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, Germany.

Career

A lifelong fan of Disney animated films, Deja was hired by the studio in 1980 after he had corresponded with Eric Larson. The first film on which he worked was ''The Black Cauldron'', during which time he shared a cubicle with the film director Tim Burton.

During his rookie days at Disney, Deja sought mentorship and practical advice from seven of the then-living Nine Old Men (who were already retired before his tenure). On an interview with Clay Katis on the ''Animation Podcast'', Deja stated that if the podcast needed anything on the Nine Old Men, to refer to him because of the vast amount of information he has collected over the years. He later revealed that one of his ambitions is to publish one book for each of the Nine Old Men.

Deja is best known as the supervising animator of some of the most memorable Disney villains: Gaston from ''Beauty and the Beast'', Jafar in ''Aladdin'' and Scar from ''The Lion King''. He also animated Roger Rabbit from ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'', King Triton from ''The Little Mermaid'', the title character from Hercules, Lilo from ''Lilo & Stitch'', and Queen Narissa from ''Enchanted''. In addition, he is the current resident specialist for the animation of Mickey Mouse.

In 2006, at the 35th Annie Awards, Deja was awarded the Winsor McCay Award for outstanding contribution to the art of animation.

On February 2, 2010 Andreas appeared on the children's BBC television show ''Blue Peter'' in promotion of the UK release of ''The Princess and the Frog''. On the show he briefly described how he devised the look for character Mama Odie, and how the eyes are key to animation design by showing how Jafar's eyes tell that he is "up to no good". Andreas is currently working on Tigger in ''Winnie the Pooh''.

Recently he started up a blog where he shares some of his collection of the work of the old Disney animators.

Personal life

Deja is openly gay. His sexuality has been discussed as an influence on the development of some Disney characters.

Animation Credits

Gurgi - ''The Black Cauldron'' (1985)

Queen Mousetoria - ''The Great Mouse Detective'' (1986)

Roger Rabbit - ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' (1988)

Character Designer - ''Oliver & Company'' (1988)

King Triton - ''The Little Mermaid'' (1989)

Supervising animator - ''The Prince and the Pauper'' (1990)

Gaston - ''Beauty and the Beast'' (1991)

Jafar - ''Aladdin'' (1992)

Scar - ''The Lion King'' (1994)

Animation Supervisor - ''Runaway Brain'' (1995)

Adult Hercules - ''Hercules'' (1997)

Animator on "Rhapsody in Blue" / Mickey Mouse - ''Fantasia 2000'' (1999)

Lilo - ''Lilo & Stitch'' (2002)

Supervising animator - ''Home on the Range'' (2004)

Animation consultant - ''Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas'' (2004)

Animation consultant - ''Bambi II'' (2006)

Queen Narissa - ''Enchanted'' (2007)

Goofy - ''How to Hook Up Your Home Theater'' (2007)

Mama Odie and Juju - ''The Princess and the Frog'' (2009)

Tigger - ''Winnie the Pooh'' (2011)

References

External links

IGN Interview with Deja (2003)

Animated News Interview with Deja (2005)

Interview with Deja, DVD Movie Guide (2003)

Category:1957 births Category:American animators Category:German animators Category:LGBT people from Poland Category:LGBT directors Category:Living people

de:Andreas Deja es:Andreas Deja fr:Andreas Deja it:Andreas Deja ja:アンドレアス・デジャ pt:Andreas Deja ru:Дежа, Андреас